Osama is working at a 7-11 in Lynnwood...

Actually I heard on the news this morning (12/23) one of suspected target is here in the northwest. That's all I caught. Anyone have additionally info?

And Forks aint even mentioned on here!!!!

Al-Qaida may target both major cities, remote areas


Los Angeles Times
Dec. 22, 2003 10:05 PM


WASHINGTON -- Al-Qaida operatives may be plotting several unrelated attacks in the United States, targeting not only major cities but also remote bulwarks of the "critical infrastructure" in an effort to cause mass casualties and major economic damage throughout the nation, U.S. officials said Monday.

Senior U.S. counter-terrorism officials said they have been unable to nail down specifics about a time or place for any potential attacks, despite a mad scramble to do so since receiving an alarming cache of corroborated intelligence beginning last Thursday and Friday.

But the officials say the intelligence they have received -- much of it from intercepted communications among known terrorist operatives overseas -- clearly refers to at least one series of coordinated, simultaneous strikes, like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as well as isolated plots of varying degrees of sophistication.

"We're concerned that there could potentially be many separate plots," said one U.S. official with knowledge of the recent intelligence. "It's hard to establish a certain theme to all of this because we are getting such a massive volume of reporting."

Much of the recent intelligence makes broad references to large urban areas, including New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, while other pieces of intelligence cite such obscure locales as Rappahannock, a county in Virginia, and Valdez, Alaska, where tankers load oil from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, according to several senior U.S. officials.

According to information received as recently as Monday, authorities remain primarily concerned about al-Qaida operatives plotting to hijack commercial airliners and cargo planes and fly them into U.S. targets, as Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Sunday in announcing the decision to elevate the terror threat level one notch, from "elevated," or yellow, to "high," or orange.

They cite a large amount of corroborated and specific intelligence that refers to efforts to hijack planes not only outside the United States, where security is not as tight, but also at domestic airports by using new and improved techniques that terrorist operatives believe could thwart the nation's vast new homeland security apparatus.

But the FBI, the CIA and other authorities have also picked up troubling intelligence about other plots, and efforts to blow up chemical and hazardous materials facilities, nuclear power plants, dams, power grids, ports and airports.

One senior federal law enforcement official said the FBI and other authorities are alarmed and frustrated because the intelligence varies so widely according to potential targets and methods of attack, as well as by its degree of specificity and corroboration. Of particular concern, he said, are vague references to upcoming attacks on "major metropolitan areas and events that we're looking at ... bowl games, New Year's events, that kind of thing."

"There is no one specific threat here. There is no place or time to tie to this," said the senior federal law enforcement official. "So we have to take all this information and do analysis."

A recent FBI alert alludes to such confusion. Citing unconfirmed intelligence reports, it warned that al-Qaida may be preparing an attack in the United States before the end of the month. But, the alert adds, "We have no information on the possible operatives, target, timing or method of a possible attack."

On Monday morning, Ridge, FBI director Robert S. Mueller III, CIA director George J. Tenet and several other senior counterterrorism advisers spent more than 50 minutes briefing President Bush on the long list of threats, as well as on recent efforts to dispatch thousands of federal, state and local agents to defend potential targets around the country.

As part of that effort, the Department of Homeland Security has asked governors and mayors to specifically protect several hundred individual "critical infrastructure" facilities that, if attacked, "could result in a catastrophic loss of life or a devastating effect on the economy," according to the senior U.S. official.

For instance, authorities in Los Angeles have identified several chemical facilities and dozens of other potential targets throughout Southern California but asked that they not be disclosed in order to better protect them from attack.

The intelligence that has prompted such an unprecedented level of concern comes from conversations among known terrorist operatives of both senior and foot-soldier rank, and also from information gleaned from intercepted e-mails, discussions in Internet chat rooms and interrogations of al-Qaida detainees on several continents, several senior U.S. counter-terrorism officials said.

The information, the officials said, comes from intelligence gathered by the CIA and the National Security Agency, as well as from allies such as Britain "and a host of many, many other countries," said the senior U.S. official.

Unlike past elevations of the terror threat level, the decision to raise the alert to orange this time was unanimous and decisive, because it was based on what senior Bush administration officials described as the most alarming, credible and specific information they had ever seen.

"I have never seen the national security leadership as tense and anxious as they are right now," said a second senior federal law enforcement official. He said even the timing of the elevation of the threat level was moved up a day because of rapidly developing concerns over the weekend. Bush administration officials were so concerned, he said, that they sent a plane to Missouri on Saturday to bring Attorney General John Ashcroft back to Washington from vacation.

"In the past, there were disagreements over whether 1/8the elevated alert 3/8 was needed," that senior official said. "This time, everyone said, 'Yeah, let's do it.' It is the most specific and credible information we've had, period."

In Los Angeles, FBI officials quietly reopened their command center last week for the first time since the beginning of the war in Iraq. The move, officials said, was aimed at bringing the FBI's third largest office into an around-the-clock counterterrorism footing in the event the latest threat materialized.

On Monday, the Los Angeles FBI office also convened an unprecedented meeting of about 100 federal, state and local law enforcement officials to outline strategies for safeguarding the region. "Everyone you could think of was there," said FBI spokesman Matthew McLaughlin.

The meeting, he said, was aimed at coordinating security measures for the five-county region served by the local FBI office and other federal agencies. The area, with a population of more than 18 million, includes a number of high-profile targets like Los Angeles International Airport, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and various tourist attractions.

"What's new this time is the credibility of the threat," said McLaughlin. "In this case, in addition to do more to safeguard locations, we are taking additional investigative steps to get ahead of this threat in a real aggressive way."

In Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities, counterterrorism agents fanned out Monday for hundreds of interviews with individuals -- including longtime FBI or CIA informants -- who may know about Middle East extremists.

"We have had other alerts," said San Francisco FBI spokeswoman LaRae Quy. "But this time, we are reaching out more to human sources to glean whatever information we can about this threat. We are asking them if anything doesn't feel right or sound right, if they are noticing any unusual travel by persons they have been watching. We are just trying to be more proactive than usual."

Roger Cressey, a former senior Bush administration counter-terrorism official, said the current intercepts have authorities so concerned because they so closely mirror the conversations picked up before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"It is known bad guys talking in that expectant chatter, saying things like we're finally going to respond to Iraq, Afghanistan and strike down the infidels ... that something big is going to happen," he said.

"It's the volume and the quality of the intelligence that is wigging everybody out, and the fact that they just don't know" where or when an attack may occur.

They sound serious this time.

Cry wolf enough and eventually you may be right. Notice every single heightened terror alert has been timed to some un-popular environmental roll back or attack on juniors credibility. I do have to hand it to this administration though. They do succeed in driving the bad news to the back pages of the papers. So far it's been a good tactic. If nothing happens then it's because they are doing a good job of protecting us. If something happens then it's "I told you so" and "our intelligence is on the ball". The only thing you can lose is the peoples trust in the color alert system which isn't much of a system anyway.

Just today, Air France cancelled six flights from Paris to LA because of possible terrorists activities aboard those flights.

What a dilemma. Is it crying wolf or Chicken Little running around again? Or is the threat genuine this time? Sad part is we may not know for sure until it's too late.

One interesting, or disturbing, fact is the administration is basing its threat level on information taken from the very agency it pointed out as being inept and unreliable. The same agency the administration used the information of to justify invasion of a country then publicly criticize for having flawed intel.

For the sake of American lives, I hope their wrong again.